Just add fauxfancy cheese.

I have a problem with spinach.

I buy the barrel sized container of it. every. single. time. I go to the store.

I think it's slimy when it's cooked, or at least when I cook it, but I love it raw. (that sounds dirty. I mean it literally.) I've eaten several versions of a spinach salad this week alone trying to finish the field of spinach I purchased last Sunday.

For example..

Fresh pear, bleu cheese (admittedly, the cheapest kind I can find, despite my oft-unrequited love of high end bleu), and untoasted walnuts. The dressing I used was a simple balsamic vinegar and olive oil combination with a dash of sugar to bring out the pear's natural juices. I love this combination, but I thought the textures of everything were a little soft. No crunch to give it variety.

Homemade tuna salad I made with a lot of celery. I think the secret to canned tuna is to give it some crunch from a really fresh vegetable. I like to use celery, carrot, green pepper, whatever else. I once used cucumber peel, which was strange. Maybe don't try that one. Since tuna salad has mayonnaise, the spinach needs no more dressing. I put red onion on mine as well, which was lovely but a bit overpowering if you're not a big onion person. Which I happen to be.

Apples, goat cheese (...it's true. I again purchased the cheapest one against my baser instincts.), and a tangy dijon mustard, red wine vinegar dressing, made with olive oil, of course. I added tons of black pepper to this dressing just because I was in the mood. It tasted fantastic to me at the time, but it might be little intense if you don't happen to be experiencing the same cravings as me.

Canned beets (which were okay only because I haven't taken the time to roast a beet in months and therefore my comparison is long forgotten and I was starved. Take the time to roast a fresh beet. Bask in its glory. Get back to me.), an absurd amount of goat cheese, and the tangiest, black peppery-est balsamic vinaigrette I could handle. Absolutely lovely. Also, I made it in about thirty seconds thanks to pre-sliced canned beets.

The Bear loved all of these salads, but since he's a manly bear, he pretended to pine for meat. My relatively new found pescatarian-ism had foiled his extremely carnivorous lifestyle.

Hey, Bear. Nice hat.

<3